[Intro]
[Instrumental Intro: Tagelharpa states the descending three-note motif above isolated drumbeats.]

No bird had broken morning’s seal,
No root had learned the weight of soil.
No wave had turned beneath a keel,
No hand had shaped, no blood could boil.

[Choir]
EE OOP-hah-vee — GIN-nung-ah-gap.
ELD-ur ock EESS — GIN-nung-ah-gap.

[Chorus]
Before the first dawn opened its eye,
Fire hungered; frost could not die.
Between them I waited, unmeasured, unmade,
A mouth without language, a woond without blade.
Before the first dawn, before god or grave,
The dark held the debt new worlds would pay.

[Verse 1]
MOOS-pel burned beyond my rim,
A red domain with borders thin.
Its sparks flew out like iron rain,
Then died before they found a name.
NIV-'l breathed from wells below,
Eleven rivers learned to flow.
Their venom hardened, pale and deep,
Where buried cold refused to sleep.

[Pre-Chorus]
Flame leaned near and frost drew breath,
Neither knew the shape of death.
Drop by drop and spark by spark,
Something struck within the dark.

[Chorus]
Before the first dawn opened its eye,
Fire hungered; frost could not die.
Between them I waited, unmeasured, unmade,
A mouth without language, a woond without blade.
Before the first dawn, before god or grave,
The dark held the debt new worlds would pay.

[Verse 2]
I felt the rime begin to weep,
Warmth went hunting through the deep.
Water gathered under stone,
Muscle formed where none had grown.
No mother bent above that birth,
No father named its weight or worth.
Yet through my hollow, vast and grim,
A single pulse declared itself: him.

[Bridge]
I had known silence without end,
No foe to break, no kin to mend.
Then one low beat disturbed my span—
Not beast, not god, not yet a man.

[Instrumental]
[Instrumental Direction: Down-tuned guitars answer the three-note tagelharpa motif while floor toms imitate an enormous slowing heart.]

[Build-up]
One beat beneath the dripping rime,
One beat that gave a measure time.
One beat the unborn worlds would hear,
One beat that taught the dark to fear.

[Final Chorus]
Before the first dawn opened its eye,
Fire found the frost and the frost learned to die.
Between them I trembled, no longer unmade,
For life raised a heartbeat where none had been laid.
Before the first dawn, before crown or grave,
The dark marked the debt new worlds would pay.

[Coda]
Remember the silence from which all things came—
Creation was waiting to murder its name.

[Outro]
No sun arose, yet time moved on.
No throat had sung, yet silence was gone.
Within the rime, beneath the dim,
The first heart answered: EE-meer.
